Penfolds
Bin 169 Cabernet Sauvignon
Coonawarra S.A.
2018

The producer

Penfolds history is much more than the story of Grange. In 1844 Dr Christopher and Mary Penfold planted vine cuttings, they had brought from Europe, at Magill Estate in South Australia. Through innovation and hard work, Penfolds was South Australia’s largest winery by the early twentieth century, so winemaker Max Schubert walked into a successful operation in 1948. His experiments with different blends of wines and the use of American oak led to the creation of wines which were ground-breaking. So much so that the Grange project, started in 1951, was officially shelved until several years later, although the wines were made and stored in secret until it was officially re-instated in 1960.

Around the same time the “Bin” concept started. Simply named after their storage bin, wines of different source and blend were given bin numbers on release. Some of these became continual releases to this day, others had short runs or were only released in exceptional years. Several of these individual Bin wines – such as 60A, 620, 42, etc. – are now wines of legendary status.

Some of the greatest red wines of the 1950s and 60s in Australia were made by blending wines from different areas to create a consistent style. Penfolds has continued this with many of their range … rich, sumptuous wines mostly with the spicing of American oak.  Penfolds has evolved its styles over the years and now produce an exemplary range of blended and specific regional shiraz styles.

However, Penfolds is also and rightly famous for its Cabernet Sauvignon, produced from its various holdings in South Australia. The first of its numbered bin range was the Bin 707 (yes named after the plane) which was first produced in 1964 but the wines saw an overall uplift in consistent quality (and price) into the 2000s. They are now consistently high quality cabernets, but at a price. 

A step up in quality (and price) is the occasionally produced, and outstanding, Block 42 Kalimna Cabernet Sauvignon.  However, for us the star of the (Penfolds Cabernet) show is their Bin 169 Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, a relative newcomer, but one which delivers outstanding quality and value.

The wine

Introduced in 2008 as a modern Cabernet Sauvignon addition to the Penfold’s range and a ‘regional’ stablemate to the multi-regional Bin 707. Bin 169 is unmistakeably from Coonawarra and is in fact sourced from Penfold winemaker Max Schubert’s original 1973 Bin 169 Coonawarra Cabernet. Redolent of abundant ripe yet crunchy red berries and cassis and with a stern mineral core, Bin 169 matures for 18 months in French oak hogsheads of which 50% are new.  

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.